What a difference a year makes. Just over a year ago, pingVision consisted of me and Kate. I was pretty much the entire design and development department, and Kate was the business operations department. "Management" consisted of our talking across the room to each other. Cases and issues were tracked on whiteboards and in pages and pages of printouts, handwritten notes and post-its bound together in client folders.
Twelve months later we are thirteen more (talented) people, and the quality and quantity of our work has shot up as a result. Being able to brainstorm in planning and swarm around projects during execution, we collectively come up with sharper, cleaner, more beautiful solutions than what any of us could do individually. It's been very enjoyable and empowering for all of us.
Yet this kind of rapid growth has brought with it a huge challenge: How to effectively manage our time and tasks on all the different projects that come in through our doors. Swarming is fun, but it's not the most cost-effective approach. And while we're adding and training new people on a regular basis -- not to mention working with some off-location people -- planning and keeping track of everything has grown way beyond what pencil lead, dry-erase pens and laser printers can provide.
Managing growth is one of those topics that gets lots of surface coverage, but it really is a different thing to face that challenge directly. While I had had hopes, I never would have predicted the kind of growth we've enjoyed so far. As a result, we've found ourselves over the past weeks and months compelled to set aside more company time to focus on our project management processes, our development methodology, and possible tools to enable and empower ourselves moving forward. I'll share some of our thinking here. Thoughts and feedback are welcome.
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